Teachers manhandled while distributing ration at south Delhi school, no case lodged

The incident triggered outrage with the civic body later declaring that it will not depute any of its teachers at the Tigri school till the Food Supply Office of Delhi government ensures their security.

Six teachers handing out dry ration at a South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) school in Tigri were allegedly manhandled by a crowd on Monday morning.

A female teacher, who was allegedly manhandled, told HT that the incident took place when a crowd of around 1,200 people turned restless. (Raj K Raj/HT PHOTO)

The incident triggered outrage with the civic body later declaring that it will not depute any of its teachers at the Tigri school till the Food Supply Office of Delhi government ensures their security.

“I have spoken to the deputy commissioner and asked him to talk to the FSO wing. The way our teachers were misbehaved with today, it will be suicide if they go back tomorrow,” said Nandini Sharma, standing committee chairperson of the education committee, SDMC.

No police complaint had been lodged in this regard till evening.

A female teacher, who was allegedly manhandled, told HT that the incident took place when a crowd of around 1,200 people turned restless “My five female colleagues and I reached the school premises at 7:45am for ration distribution and found that a crowd of around 1,200 people had already queued up.”

“They were complaining that we are late and all of them will not get ration. Soon, they started abusing us and this led to a scuffle. There were no security guards or policemen to help us. Thankfully, our area school inspector, Ramdayal Meena, arrived on receiving our SOS messages and evacuated us to an adjacent school building,” the teacher said.

Meena said, “I had to lock up the ladies to prevent them from being harmed by the crowd. A PCR van came 30 minutes later and brought the crowd under control. We realised most of the people didn’t even have the e-coupons for ration issued by the Delhi Government.”

The secretary of the municipal teachers’ union, Ramniwas Solanki, said, he has written to the chief minister, municipal commissioners and even to the Prime Minister’s Office asking to either ensure security for teachers or withdraw them from the ration and food distribution duty.

“One of our teachers deputed in Jahangirpuri area has already died from Covid and her husband too has the virus. It is suspected that she got the virus during ration distribution duty,” he said.

“Further, there are no safeguards for us. For every packet of ration given out, we have to take signatures or thumb impressions. There is only a single register, a single pen and one inkpad at each school for this purpose. We cannot keep risking our families’ lives,” he said.